A settler or colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that settlers establish is a Human settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among the first settling at a place that is new to the settler community.
The process of settling land can be, and has often been, controversial; while human migration is itself a normal phenomenon, it has not been uncommon throughout human history for settlers to have arrived in already-inhabited lands without the intention of living alongside the native population. In these cases, the conflict that arises between the settlers and the natives, or Indigenous peoples, may result in the dispossession of the latter within the contested territory, usually violently.
The lifestyle of a native population is often disturbed or destroyed if they come into contact with a settler population, particularly when the settler population seeks to mostly replace them.
Historical usage
Many times throughout history, settlers occupied land that was previously inhabited by long-established peoples, who are designated as native or Indigenous. The process by which Indigenous territories are settled by foreign peoples is usually called settler colonialism.
[LeFevre, Tate Etc.. "Settler Colonialism". www.oxfordbibliographies.com. Tate A. LeFevre. Retrieved 19 October 2017.] It relies upon a process of dispossession, often violent.
In the figurative usage, a "person who goes first or does something first" also applies to the American pioneer to refer to a settlera person who has migrated to a less occupied area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area, as first recorded in English in 1605.[[1] Online Etymological Dictionary] In United States history, it refers to the Europeans who were part of the process of settling lands which here new to them.
The Russian Empire regularly invited Russian subjects and foreign nationals to settle in sparsely populated lands, mostly in North Asia, but also in Central Asia.
Although settlers in the early modern era frequently made use of sea routes—significant waves of settlement could also use long overland routes, such as the Great Trek by the Boers-Afrikaners in South Africa, or the Oregon Trail in the United States.
Anthropological usage
Anthropologists record the tribal displacement of native settlers who drive another tribe from the lands it held, such as the settlement of lands in the area now called Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where the
Ohlone settled in areas that were previously inhabited by the
Esselen.
[ Prehistoric Sources Technical Study, prepared for the city of Monterey by Bainbridge Behrens Moore Inc., 23 May 1977]
Modern usage
In Canada, the term "settler" is used by some to describe "the non-Indigenous peoples living in Canada who form the European-descended sociopolitical majority" and thereby asserting that settler colonialism is an ongoing phenomenon. The usage is controversial.
In the Middle East and North Africa, there are more recent examples of settler communities being established:
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Iraq – the Ba'athist Arabization campaigns in northern Iraq, which began in 1968, resulted in the ethnic cleansing of non-Arabs, especially Kurds, who were then replaced by Arab settlers in a process that continued until the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
[Francis Kofi Abiew (1991). The Evolution of the Doctrine and Practice of Humanitarian Intervention. p. 146.]
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Israel – large-scale immigration of Jews to Palestine began by 1882—namely to Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, Safed, Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram, Petah Tikva and various other locations.
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Cyprus – after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, citizens of the Turkey began moving into the internationally unrecognized Northern Cyprus. Today, it is estimated that these Turkish settlers constitute around half of the population of Northern Cyprus.
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Morocco – from the beginning of the Western Sahara conflict, citizens of the Morocco began moving into the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.
Causes of emigration
The reasons for the emigration of settlers vary, but often they include the following factors and incentives: the desire to start a new and better life in a foreign land, personal financial hardship, social, cultural, ethnic, or religious persecution (e.g., the Pilgrims and
), penal deportation (e.g. of convicted criminals from England to Australia), political oppression, and government incentive policies aimed at encouraging foreign settlement.
[Olsen, Daniel H., and Brian J. Hill. "Pilgrimage and identity along the mormon trail." Religious pilgrimage routes and trails: sustainable development and management. Wallingford UK: CAB International, 2018. 234–246.][Lambright, Bri. "The Ainu, Meiji Era Politics, and Its Lasting Impacts: A Historical Analysis of Racialization, Colonization, and the Creation of State and Identity in Relation to Ainu-Japanese History." (2022).
][King, Russell. Atlas of Human Migration]
See also
